For some reason I had always had a visual
picture of the Wild Ride as being late at night since Sarah and Todd Palin
landed in Anchorage
about 10:30 pm that Thursday night April 17, 2008. But they had been traveling
all day during busy times. If their 4 hour flight landed in AK at 10:30 pm,
that means they left Seattle (after the 2-hour
layover) at 6:30 pm AK time (7:30 pm Seattle
time). So the layover in Seattle
was from about 5:30-7:30 pm.
Well, today (Thurs 4/18) I am traveling and
as I write this post, I am sitting in the Alaska Airlines Board Room (their
airline club) at Seattle-TacomaInternationalAirport.
It is now about 7:00 pm local time and I have been here for a little over an
hour – literally at the exact same time in the exact same airline club during
the exact same Thursday evening of the year that the Palins spent that 2-hour
layover during the alleged Wild Ride five years ago.
This is a busy time at the airport and
there must be about 30 people here on my floor. There are two floors so
probably double that number for occupancy of the entire lounge.
There looks like there are some new
furniture coverings but the overall décor is the same as it has been for
several years – sort of low chairs and
couch type things (some without arms) and low “coffee table” type tables. With
some bar stools at a high table stretching along with windows. But many/most of
the chairs have been low.
As it happened, there was a pregnant woman
(medium height and build) who was sitting across from me for a while. Even
though she had a coat in front of her, you could still definitely tell that she
was pregnant. She had trouble leaning forward with the low seats and tables and
her husband helped organize their refreshments. She had to lean back. I saw her
get up and down a couple of times. She had to sort of get a “running start” to
get momentum and had to do that back arching thing while holding onto the
backrest of the low chair to stand up.
Sarah Palin with reporter Andrea Gusty, 13th April 2008. Several days later Palin flew with Alaska Airways whose only statement about her flight was that the stage of her pregnancy was not apparent (click on picture for high-resolution)
During this time two Board Room staff
picking up dishes asked the pregnant woman if she needed anything, but she was fine.
While they were sitting there I also asked
her about her trip and if the staff on the plane were as attentive. She
confirmed that even though she and her husband were flying coach (so pretty
cramped quarters) that the flight attendants made sure she was extra well
hydrated. She had just arrived on a flight from back east. Apparently, the guy
that had the aisle seat even traded places so she could have that one for a bit
more room. Obviously he could tell that she was pregnant.
I asked a question at the front desk and
mused out loud that they must get to know a lot of the VIP guests that travel
frequently through here (high profile local media people,
prominent politicians, sports figures, well known business people, etc.) One
person responded that yes they do and make an effort to remember these people.
Gosh – like maybe Governors from this part of the country……
I couldn’t help but think of another woman
(a “VIP” no less) in the late stages of “pregnancy” who spent a Thursday
evening in April around dinner time in this busy airport lounge and supposedly
nobody here or on the plane even noticed that she was pregnant, much less in
early labor.
What.A.Crock.
The Wild Ride obviously never happened!
Alaska Airlines: "The stage of Mrs Palin's pregnancy was not apparent by observation during her travel"
(Many thanks to our reader "comeonpeople" for writing to Alaska Airlines in 2010 and then making the reply available to us!)
In addition, we do not want to forget to mention the excellent video by our reader Lidia17, which she created in 2010. In this video, Lidia17 contrasted the two completely different versions that Sarah Palin told about her birth story - and both being "spoken" by herself (at the press conference on April 21, 2008 and on the "Going Rogue" audio book). I always loved that video! What a shame that the world is so easily fooled, when the fraudsters are in plain sight!
The first two videos by Lidia17, her very convincing effort to create a comprehensive documentary about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy, can be viewed HERE and HERE.
+++ Finally, I would like to add the comment that our reader Sondra, who is from Alaska, left on this post:
I can't tell you how thankful I am for all of you. Like you I've been banging my head for years. How can anyone not think this is a MAJOR issue? Is it really that hard for someone to show a birth certificate? If someone questioned my kids' births I'd whip those puppies out in an instant. Then all of this would have gone away.
The morning of April 19, 2008 I began contacting the media. I started with KTUU. Then it was local AP, then national AP. No one cared. Sarah who? I called ACOG, Alaska Airlines, Sen Murkowski's office, and of course ADN. Many times. People either didn't care or they were informing Sarah. She knew I was on to her. Our local AP director asked me to provide a list of questions to ask CBJ to none other than Steve Quinn....yep....the questions (very detailed ones) I'm sure went directly to Sarah via Ivy Frye.
Silence.
I kept at it for a long time. I knew I had to give it up when my autistic kiddo threw my computer mouse and broke it. He was sick of looking at the back of my head. Priorities. Unlike Sarah my special needs kid HAD to come first. I did the right thing.
Then that day in August when my husband woke me to tell me "HE PICKED HER!!!" Of course, I knew in my head that he would. We immediately began calling McCain's campaign office, and though we were polite, they blocked our calls.
Then you came along. I can't tell you the relief I felt when I suddenly found, unlike here, like-minded people who knew Sarah was full of shit. Sarah's popularity was inflated here, but still high. Who doesn't love free money, right? Most loved Sarah or the idea of Sarah.
All of you have done what I could never have done. You're smart, savvy, and tenacious. You found evidence that I didn't look for. You asked questions. You found answers. You found the truth.
Have faith in karma. She won't get away with this forever.
PS. Dear Kristy--if you, your alter ego Julie Newman, or any of your other alias/fake accounts contact me again I will report you to the authorities. Coward.
I replied:
Sondra, thank you so much for all your efforts!! I cannot prove it, but I believe that you are the very first "babygater!" Well, "Alaska" decided pretty early that the true story has to be kept a secret. After Lisa Demer's ADN-investigation died in late 2008, all hope was gone that the Alaskans would reveal the secret. That is something we didn't know back then, and we certainly would have refused to believe it.
Also, looking back, the "Journolist" emails made abundantly clear that the liberals wouldn't touch the issue as well - because they believed that it could backfire on them. And the Republicans were (and are) not interested either. The GOP more or less quietly got rid of Sarah, she is not part of the political circles any more, they basically discarded her like an old dish-rag (even our delusional friends from the peepond have realized that). So there is nobody left who could be interested to investigate and to reveal this huge secret, especially now where Sarah Palin is sliding into political irrelevancy.
I agree with Leadfoot below, I would have liked to see her properly exposed and shamed, so that everyone would have seen that Palin is not just stupid and mean, but also a huge fraudster. But it seems that we will have to be content with the "status quo", with Palin being laughed off the political scene, but without the big public shaming she would have deserved. I guess that one cannot have everything. It's not satisfying, but let's face it: The situation could have been far, far worse. In 2009/2010 Palin had the chance to became politically powerful - and I believe that the people who kept a watchful eye on her and her dark secrets ultimately prevented that.
So as I said before, all the bloggers and investigators and readers can be happy and should be proud. The situation is not perfect, but still, a lot has been achieved, and we don't need to worry about Sarah Palin any more.
+++ Note: Read more about Sarah Palin's "wild ride" on April 17, 2008 HERE. Read all posts at Politicalgates about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy with Trig - FOR THE COLLECTION,CLICKHERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE,HERE AND HERE.
Sarah Palin's "Wild Ride" on April 17, 2008 was an event which had far reaching consequences. Without the "Wild Ride", the would have never been a "Trig Truther movement", and there would have never been the blog "Politicalgates." Our blog is the creation of activists of this movement, who, like Kathleen and myself, might have remained fairly "passive" participants in this big brave new internet world. But Sarah Palin decided to tell the world this "cock and bull story" (click for audio) which later became infamous as the "Wild Ride" - at story which made many people suspicious. Therefore we should be grateful to Sarah Palin, shouldn't we?
Four years ago, Sarah Palin's world was a different one. She was the powerful Governor of Alaska, and self-conscious to the extreme. Later the went on to become John McCain's running mate, and in the wake of this fateful move by John McCain she also quickly became America's biggest national joke. Today, after many more embarrassing moments, including moments which further divided the US society, she is what one could call "disgraced", and there can hardly be a greater insult for a female politician these days than to be called "the next Sarah Palin."
Therefore Sarah Palin, who now mainly seems to be concerned with preserving a lucrative TV-career for herself and other members of her family, isn't really a threat any more. But it was quite a long way before we got to this point. I am sure that today the media won't be keen to be reminded how virtually every tweet and every facebook post by Sarah Palin and her busy ghostwriters in 2009 and 2010 received major media coverage. Sarah Palin was a hot topic back then, and she managed to spread a lot of propaganda around, and the media didn't seem to care too much whether she was a vicious demagogue or not.
In my view, Sarah Palin's TV-career was only made possible because the media collectively decided not to report about what is probably her biggest secret: Her faked pregnancy with Trig - because the revelation of this huge, shameless lie would have thrown her off the airwaves in my opinion.
But the media didn't report on the pregnancy because there wasn't anything to report about. The main reason, as we also know from the leaked Journolist emails, was that the liberal minded journalists were actually afraid to touch the issue, because they were scared that it could backfire on their preferred candidate. This candidate, Barack Obama, conveniently declared already on September 1, 2008 that the children should be left out of the campaign. This statement was then generously interpreted by the media, as Sarah Palin's pregnancy was afterwards "out of bounds", with very few exceptions to this rule - but hardly any exceptions - which led to what Brad Scharlott later called the "Spiral of Silence."
This is your liberal media, ladies and gentlemen: totally partisan, interested in the truth only if it advances their agenda, and devoid of any balls whatsoever. And people wonder how this farce of a candidate now controls one major political party and could well be our next president. One reason is that we do not have a functioning adversarial media uncorrupted by partisan loyalty and tactics.
In 2011, it became even worse, when liberal journalists, with Justin Elliott at Salon as their "leader", tried to finally "debunk" the fake pregnancy theories - and failed miserably. But as it stands now, it will be "written in the history books" that the allegations that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy were finally "debunked" by the media - although nothing of that sort actually took place.
When recently it was discovered in Sarah Palin's emails from 2008 and 2009 that Palin and her busy team in the Governor's office started a vicious bullying campaign against Lisa Demer, journalist at the Anchorage Daily News, as well as against their editor Pat Dougherty, the media didn't even care to report about these stunning revleations any more. It was fascinating as well as frightening to discover in those emails how Sarah Palin and her camp tried to bully and intimidate the Anchorage Daily News, with only one goal in mind: Make them stop asking questions about the Trig pregnancy. In the end, that's what Palin's soldiers in the Governor's office achieved.
Many posts have been published about Sarah Palin's pregnancy by bloggers who only wanted to report the facts, and were not intimidated by anyone. In honour of the fourth anniversary of Sarah Palin's "Wild Ride", I would like conclude this post with an excerpt of a post about the "Wild Ride" which I posted at Palingates in September 2010.
Let me also say that I am grateful for the "Wild Ride." It opened the way for many good things which happened afterwards, and without it, we wouldn't be here today. Luckily, even without the public revelation of Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy, she has been thoroughly defeated, and in fact decided to leave the battle before it even began.
The whole story could have very well turned out differently. However, thanks to citizens, bloggers as well as authors who spent many months, sometimes even years researching Sarah Palin's life and dealings, trying to expose the "true" Sarah Palin, she ultimately had to bail out, as far too many dark secrets were lurking in the background. That's my opinion, but you probably won't find this version of events in the history books. "Officially", it were Katie Couric and Tina Fey who defeated Sarah Palin.
+++
Sarah Palin's "Wild Ride" on April 17, 2008 - The ultimate video, in Sarah's own words
Sarah Palin's "wild ride", her flight back from Texas to Alaska on
April 17, 2008, was a crucial event, which had consequences that surely
nobody could have foreseen at the time.
Four
days after the "wild ride", on April 21, 2008, Sarah Palin gave a press
conference to reporters in Alaska (those were the days...) and presented
a story to them which simply was very hard to believe. According to
Sarah, her water had broken in Texas in the early morning of the 17th
April. Her reaction was to call her family doctor in Alaska, Cathy
Baldwin-Johnson, ask her for advice over the telephone, then give a
speech at the RGA conference in Dallas later during the day, and go on a
12-hour to fly home. She then officially gave birth to Trig on the
early morning of 18th April, 2008 - about 24 hours after her water had
broken.
No hospital or doctor in Dallas was graced with Sarah's presence. The
fact that Sarah Palin officially was in her seventh pregnancy
(including of two miscarriages), did not prompt her to see a medical
professional in Dallas, after her water had broken, at 35 weeks
pregnant.
As one of the most importance
consequences of Sarah's "wild ride" story, people in- and outside of
Alaska started to doubt that Sarah Palin was telling the truth about her
pregnancy story - including later several journalists immediately after
Sarah Palin's nomination, as was revealed in the "JournoList" emails.
At Palingates, we have extensively written about the details of the "wild ride" - for example HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.
Today, we have news. Our reader lidia17, who already created two amazing videos about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy, got active for us again and made another video which we have all been waiting for: Sarah Palin's "wild ride" - in her own words, but contrasting the TWO versions that Sarah Palin tried to "sell" to the public!
In
the clip, Sarah's taped press conference from April 21, 2008 is
contrasted with the story told in "Going Rogue" in 2009, which is also
"on tape", because it was published also via audio book.
However,
additional material has been included in this video. For example,
emails of Sarah Palin's administration which were written at the time
shortly before and "during" the "wild ride" in April 2008 give further
insights into the highly suspicious circumstances of this trip to Texas.
These emails were only published much later, mostly in 2010.
Read all posts at Politicalgates about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy with Trig - FOR THE COLLECTION,CLICKHERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE,HERE AND HERE.
+++Read the follow-up: Sarah Palin's team wants to "launch a pre-emptive strike" against Lisa Demer's investigations+++ +++Second follow-up: Bill McAllister wants to "cut the ADN off" because of Trig investigation, Pat Dougherty accuses McAllister of "malpractice" in return+++
We have a surprise: The latest batch of emails from Sarah Palin's administration which were released on Thursday proved to be far more interesting than expected. After the last large batch which was published in June last year, and which received huge media attention, some sort of "consensus" was reached in public that Palin's time as the Governor of Alaska now has been sufficiently examined, and that no more ink should be wasted. However, such a notion would seem to be premature, as this is an exciting new development.
The first surprise is the much higher number of emails which have been published now in comparison to the last batch: In June 2011, 24,199 pages have been released by the State of Alaska. This time, 34,820 pages have been released.
The second surprise: It turns out on close inspection that much fewer emails have been censored this time. On the website of msnbc.com, the privilege logs from the June 2011 batch can be found. For each batch, two lists exists: One with the "withheld" emails, one with the "redacted" emails. As we can see from the file made available by msnbc.com, in June 2011 we had 79 pages with "withheld" emails and 189 pages with "redacted" emails. With the newly released batch, similar lists with 80 pages containing the headers of the "withheld" emails and 165 pages with the headers of the "redacted" emails are being provided. Given the much higher number of released emails this time, it is apparent that the State of Alaska became more "relaxed" when it comes to censoring Sarah Palin emails.
This new approach, as I would call it, pays off for anyone who is interested in the truth about Sarah Palin. In addition, we have the emails which were published by Frank Bailey in "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin", and they sometimes tie in nicely with the emails published by State of Alaska.
I can only cover some of the most important emails in this post. There is simply too much material, and we will have more time to report about the emails in the future. First of all, let's get one piece of disinformation out of the way, which is now being repeated again as a "mantra" by the Palinbots - and also uncritically being reported by large parts of the media:
It it simply untrue that Sarah Palin was forced to pay the costs for her legal defense against the ethics complaints herself, was forced to "bankrupt her family" and was subsequently driven out of office, as Palin herself claims in an email from January 2, 2009. This often repeated myth can easily be debunked with hard evidence.
When Sarah Palin's first legal defense fund, the "Alaska Fund Trust", was declared unethical by the state-assigned investigator Tim Petumenos in June 2010 after an ethics complaint by Kim Chatman, Petumenos published an extensive report, and for the first time the following was revealed in public: The State of Alaska offered to pay for the defense against the ethics complaints, and even entered into a contract for legal services with Palin's lawyers, for an amount "up to $ 100,000 at public expense." This would have given Sarah Palin enough resources to mount a solid defense, but as investigator Petumenos notes: "No invoices were submitted."
The reasons for this untypical behaviour by Sarah Palin are completely unclear. The lawyers claim that it would have been "too difficult to separate the functions of representing Governor Palin in her official capacity in the pending state-related matters, and representing her in other related campaign or partisan matters beyond the scope of the state contract." This explanation is nonsensical, as every lawyer knows who has ever invoiced billable hours.
The meme that Sarah Palin was forced to bankrupt herself is therefore pure propaganda. Furthermore, bloggers have in the past diligently examined the numbers which were thrown around by Palin's camp for the costs of the ethics complaints. The Henkimaa blog conducted an detailed analysis about the true costs of the ethics complaints for the State of Alaska and concluded that the true cost came close to $ 300,000 - and not $ 2 million as claimed previously by Sarah Palin (see also this related post at the Firedoglake blog). Nearly $ 190,000 of this amount were the costs of the Troopergate ethics investigation - with three complaints "lumped together", including the ethics complaint that Sarah Palin filed against herself for tactical reasons after being condemned for "abuse of power" in the bipartisan "Branchflower Report" by the Alaska legislature.
Let's now take a closer look at emails related to Sarah Palin's pregnancy with Trig - an issue which should now receive new attention in the media again, because the newly published emails prove again, more than ever, that Sarah Palin was unable to offer any proof for her pregnancy with Trig and that she and her camp resorted to stubborn stonewalling and even insults in order to suppress the investigation by ADN-journalist Lisa Demer in late 2008.
It should actually come as a surprise to the readers of the Anchorage Daily News that Lisa Demer was trying to do a thorough job when it came to investigating the fake pregnancy rumours in late 2008 - because the readers of the ADN were never told about this in any detail.
As it now turns out, Lisa Demer was asking the right questions, and addressed them to the right people - and received a furious response from the Palin camp.
From: Demer, Lisa
To: Leighow, Sharon W (GOV)
Cc: McAIlister, William D (GOV)
Sent: Tue Dec 16 19:13:46 2008
Subject: RE: Governor Palin
Hi Sharon,
Thanks for getting back with me so quickly.
Could you ask the governor if the family will send an announcement to the Daily News when Bristol’s baby is born? That would be helpful. There has been worldwide attention on this pregnancy, which Gov. Palin herself announced. This is the next chapter in the story. There’s a spot on the governor’s official Web site about Trig. Is this that different? Regarding the questions about Trig, it is within the governor’s power to put this to rest for most people. Maybe not all but certainly most reasonable people would accept a definitive statement from her doctor. If Cathy Baldwin-Johnson were given written consent to talk to me one more time about the birth, the questions that I keep hearing could be answered. The questions for the doctor: Did you deliver Trig? If not, who did? Who is Trig Palin’s biological mom and how do you know that?
Here’s one more request that might help. Would the governor make available a copy of Trig’s birth certificate? We could mention in our story what the birth certificate says.
We’re also looking for explanation about the earlier medical history statement. That statement wasn’t direct enough for some people. There also is a side issue related to it. A simple explanation of how it came together, who wrote it, and why it was released so late on Election Eve would be helpful. Dr. Baldwin-Johnson could help on some of that. But that’s less important than the issue of Trig.
Thanks for whatever you can do.
Regards, Lisa
Exactly, Lisa! Did Cathy-Baldwin Johnson deliver Trig? If not, who did? Who is Trig Palin's biological mother? What does his birth certificate say? Why was Cathy-Baldwin Johnson's statement released so late on Election Eve? Can we have a definitive statement from Palin's doctor, please?
Aren't these simple, easy questions? The matter could be settled within a day, and we could all forget about it!
We "Trig Truthers" have never asked for anything else - and have never ever received an answer!
Lisa Demer, as it turns out, never received an answer either.
Instead, Sarah Palin's spokesman Bill McAllister replies to Lisa and starts to insult her - in an apparent attempt to fob her off and shut her up, and ends with saying that he expects a "sweeping apology" from her as the only possible reply:
From: McAllister, William D (GOV)
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 7:35 PM
To: ’LDemer@adn.com’; Leighow, Sharon W (GOV); ’dhulen@adn.com’; Nizich, Michael A (GOV)
Subject: Re: Governor Palin
Lisa,
Allow me to intervene in a completely off-the-record way: I never anticipated the depths of sleaze that your paper would come to countenance. That the governor would have to prove maternity to you is perhaps the most despicable idea ever peddled by an organization that once had Pulitzer Prize status (and that now won’t even staff the legislative session). This is a disgrace, an outrage and a damnable injustice. Stop forcing us to spend state time to respond to this trash. We will not participate in your continued self-debasement as a news professional. Your inquiries about this are hereby permanently rejected, and your arrogance will have us discussing if we want to have anything to do with the ADN at all. Do not reply, unless it’s to offer a sweeping apology.
Off the record,
Bill
The inquiries "are hereby permanently rejected" - problem solved!
Sarah Palin also wonders what to do now - after all, the birth certificate couldn't be presented, as it wouldn't show what it's supposed to show, and medical records or other hard evidence are also not available, so what else is there left to do to suppress the inquiry by the ADN?
..... Original Message .....
From: Palin, Sarah (GOV sponsored)
To: McAllister, William D (GOV); Leighow, Sharon W (GOV)
Cc: Nizich, Michael A (GOV); Perry, Kristina Y (GOV)
Sent: WedDec 17 19:05:21 2008
Subject: Baby
Flippin ridiculous. My doctor (CBJ, she delivered Trig and served on our Health Care Council and was named America’s Top Family Physician a few yrs ago) called Todd to give me a message requesting that I call her tomorrow - to discuss "a phone call she received from Lisa Demer at the ADN"! Sheeeesh, this is one busy doctor and she has to continually be bugged by media about this ridiculous issue?
Maybe we can be clever about this and use the opportunity to point out how wacko some media outlets have become. If you can think of anything clever, let me know.., we’ll do it. I’ll even do a press avail on it, if need be.
Short of producing the photos that Bristol took of me having Trig (and it’ll be over my dead body that they’re released without major photoshopping done first), I don’t know how else to prove I gave birth to Trig. CBJ has testified, she’s released my health records summary.., what else does it take.
Bristol "took photos of me having Trig"...? We never heard this before - or afterwards. This is an obvious lie, a desperate claim by Sarah Palin in order to convince also her inner circle that there is nothing suspicious about her pregnancy with Trig. Interestingly, Sarah Palin made a similar desperate false claim in December 2009 when she suddenly claimed on a radio show in December 2009 that has "provided Trig's birth certificate" - despite the fact that nobody can be found who has seen it. Lisa Demer certainly hasn't seen it!
..... Original Message .....
From: McAllister, William D (GOV)
To: Palin, Sarah (GOV sponsored); Leighow, Sharon W (GOV)
Cc: Nizich, Michael A (GOV); Perry, Kristina Y (GOV)
Sent: WedDec 17 19:23:28 2008
Subject: Re: Baby
How about I call a press availability tomorrow and on your behalf say we won’t dignify these questions and call out by name the reporters pursuing them? We can talk about the doctor being harassed, AP trying to implicate you re: racist e-mails by a few state employees, and much other garbage. And we could announce the new website critiquing the media. Will this make them back off? No, at least not entirely. But right now we’re in an ax fight without an ax. Let’s at least demonstrate publicly our pride and honor that we’re not going to let this evil stand.
Now, we could go sarcastic, with a presser in which we acknowledge that Bigfoot is a member of your Cabinet who has counseled predator control and that you are really the descendant of Anastasia, who survived the execution of the czar, s family, proving that not only can you see Russia but that you’re actually from there, and that you’ve got all of Imelda Marcos’ shoes plus Michael Jackson’s white glove. And then we can ask the ADN reporter why they’re not covering session.
There are a number of ways we can handle this. But let’s go.get ’em.
"We are not going to let this evil stand."
Well, yes, Bill, you have to let this evil stand, because you cannot present any proof that Sarah Palin is Trig's biological mother - so the only way out would be smears, attacks, threats and propaganda, as it seems, and that's exactly the route that the Palin camp chose.
The published emails also contain the complete exchange between Sarah Palin and ADN-editor Pat Dougherty, which he had published on his Editors Blog at the ADN in January 2009. This exchange is always worth to be revisited. Despite that fact that none of Lisa Demer's question were answered, the Anchorage Daily News dropped the matter. I discussed the obvious reason for this decision in a post at Palingates in September 2009 - the ADN receives huge sums for advertising and printing from the State of Alaska each year. The ADN simply couldn't afford to annoy such an important customer, especially one with such a sensitive "boss" like Sarah Palin, who also unashamedly hinted to the ongoing financial troubles of the ADN in the email exchange with Pat Dougherty.
These days, Pat Dougherty is keen to claim that "the story of persistent rumors does not interest him any more than President Obama’s birth certificate conspiracy." However, with the decision to let Sarah Palin off the hook despite not having answered the questions by Lisa Demer, Pat Dougherty put the reputation of his newspaper at risk, and it's safe to say that this reputation remains permanently damaged. We have seen too many emails by Sarah Palin and her staff stonewalling all questions about Sarah Palin's pregnancy, also in the book "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin" by Frank Bailey (even more in the leaked manuscript of the book), when even immediately before and after the official birth on April 18, 2008, Sarah Palin freaked out about the faked pregnancy allegations and the allegations that Trig is Bristol's child, but could provide no proof to the contrary.
When it comes to the ADN, one also shouldn't forget the memorable interview that ADN-columnist and former editor Michael Carey gave on September 2, 2008 - explaining that the faked pregnancy issue was intensively discussed within the ADN and that he has a friend, a "smart lawyer", who told him that the rumour about Palin's faked pregnancy was "the absolute truth":
There will be more to add to this in the future, but right now I would like conclude this post with a very surprising "personal" discovery, because in the published emails, a few of my very own emails are included as well. This brings memories back from a time "long gone", when Kathleen and I were members of the Palindeception research team. A lot has happened since that time, and I had pretty much forgotten about these emails, but the "reactions" I caused and didn't know about until yesterday are still very relevant.
So how did my emails end up in this batch? Well, the funny things is that I didn't even directly write to the State of Alaska - but to "factcheck.org" in the first place. I complained to them about an article by factcheck.org which is still online, called "Muting the Mommy Melodrama." In this article, factcheck.org tries to debunk the fake pregnancy rumours with a piece of evidence which mysteriously appeared on August 31, 2008, right at the start of Palin's VP campaign: A picture uploaded by an anonymous user called "erik99559" to flickr. This picture was apparently taken on April 13, 2008, just five days before the "official birth", and shows a pregnant looking Sarah Palin.
This photo - click on it for high resolution:
There was much speculation about this picture in our research team as well as on the Palindeception Blog.
Audrey from the Palindeception Blog, who ran this website which has been dormant since summer 2009 and started the public investigation into Sarah Palin's pregnancy with Trig, instructed a photo forensics expert to make an examination of the so-called "Gusty picture", which had mysteriously appeared on flickr on August 31, 2008 (and was online for about one year, before it was deleted from flickr).
By the way, I never received a response from factcheck.org. They don't seem to bother much about facts at all, and the thought that a person who fakes a pregnancy HAS to look pregnant AT SOME POINT obviously never occurred to them.
This report found it's way into Sarah Palin's email imbox, because I copied Andrea Gusty's station in (11 News KTVA), who actually received the email and then later replied to tell me that KTVA will broadcast a TV-report about these pictures. This report:
KTVA even published the full original broadcast of the programme in which this footage from April 13, 2008 was used - which has been preserved HERE.
For the record: I don't believe any more that the photo from April 13, 2008 is "fake", and that the report from the forensics expert is accurate. The report was severely impeded by the fact that the original digital picture was not available. The photo was bad quality. Digital photo forensics are a very tricky business, and for years already I have been convinced that the picture was indeed taken on April 13, 2008.
The only thing what really matters in the great scheme of things is the fact that this picture was conveniently uploaded on August 31, 2008 to flickr by the photographer Daniel Erik Carpenter from Bethel ("erik99559", with 99559 being Bethel's post code) - who even identified himself in one of the pictures. It was the public "proof" for the pregnancy that Sarah Palin desperately needed - and it served its purpose. No further proof was needed, certainly not a birth certificate - because suddenly, there was the pregnant looking Governor, right in front of our eyes...
As you can see in the email exchange, I then answered Andrea Gusty again, and I was cheeky, because I also copied in Bill McAllister in. I guess I wanted to annoy him a bit. Little did I know that I also managed to annoy the Queen herself!
Not just one, but two responses by Sarah Palin have been recorded, after she received the email exchange from Bill McAllister:
"Just fyi, I guess. Our press office has to deal w this again today? Geez."
This "new" attitude, "gotta' embrace it", is actually exactly the approach Sarah Palin displayed later in several speeches when she mocked the "Trig Truthers" (after we still didn't shut up), for example a speech in Waco, Texas on September 14, 2010 (a speech in which she suddenly discovered that she "had the baby in Anchorage"):
She had no proof, but that didn't stop her from joking about the issue, because she knew she was safe - after all, the liberal media had long decided that that issue of Palin's pregnancy couldn't be touched, for purely political reasons.
But there is another important point to make about this email exchange. As you can see from the headers depicted above, Sarah Palin also forward this email to Talis Colberg, who was the Alaskan Attorney General at the time.
"It is true, however, that we claim that it is not Sarah Palin
who is the biological mother of Trig."
That is a strong claim - and Sarah Palin saw it, the Alaskan Attorney General saw it, Bill McAllister and all the others saw it - already in January 2009. Despite this fact no lawyer EVER contacted the "Trig Truthers" and asked for a retractions of this serious claim. We repeated this claim many times in our posts, and there was just a big, long silence.
But we know the reason for this, we know it already for a long time. Sarah Palin has no evidence to prove that she is Trig's biological mother - because she isn't. From excellent inside information coming from the "upper echelons of society" in Alaska as well as a mountain of evidence we know that Sarah Palin is not the mother. We knew this already in January 2009, and that's why I felt perfectly safe to make this claim in my email. I am a lawyer myself and have worked as a trial lawyer in Germany in the past, I do know that it would be a bad idea to carelessly libel a public figure. But we never libelled anyone. We just write the plain truth, and in return, the liberal media loves to call us "conspiracy theorists."
But we are not conspiracy theorists. We know that Sarah Palin is not the biological mother of Trig, and that she has no proof for her pregnancy. She is a liar, and a very successful one, who has the benefit of being surrounded by a team of people whose main purpose apparently is to spread propaganda and cover up her lies.
On March 4, 2008, her close aide Sharon Leighow just heard the news about Sarah Palin's pregnancy (one day before the official public announcement). Sharon Leighow has an appropriate response to the news and writes to Sarah:
"And kudos on being a master of disguise!"
However, Sarah Palin is not happy at all about this remark, and writes back, providing the most ridiculous statement ever about her pregnancy (just next to her statements "Bristol took pictures while I delivered" and "I provided Trig's birth certificate"):
"Thanks! And "master of disguise"?! Ugh- I’m big as a house. But glad about it!"
So let's take a closer look at Sarah Palin, the "house." But first let's look a the pictures from the day when Trig was officially born - the April 18, 2008. KTUU presented their readers and viewers exclusive pictures of Trig, taken on April 18, 2008:
This picture which was taken on March 26, 2008 was already discovered at the end of 2008 (large size HERE):
This and some other pictures were discovered only recently:
Wow, they have rather small houses in Alaska these days!
Well, it also turned out that Sarah Palin had the "speediest"pregnancy of all times - because just three weeks earlier, she looked very, very different, take a close look:
+++
"Babygate" has been covered in more detail in previous posts. You can find all this information here:
Read all posts at Politicalgates about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy with Trig - FOR THE COLLECTION,CLICKHERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE,HERE AND HERE.
Download the research paper regarding Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy and the role of the media, written by Brad Scharlott, Associate Professor for Journalism at Northern Kentucky University - CLICK HERE.
Read the old post at Palingates about the faked pregnancy with the pictures still intact in hardcopyHERE. Read the old posts at Palingates onlineHERE (useful also for watching the video clips which were published with the posts). In addition, please don't hesitate to watch the excellent video-documentaries about "babygate" which our reader Lidia17 created - HERE, HERE and HERE.
We break the "Spiral of Silence" - Read the details about the "biggest hoax in American political history!"
Leading up to the 2010 elections, the Republican Tea Party candidates all echoed the same talking point message: “Jobs Jobs Jobs”. However, since the elections, the only JOBS they have created thus far have been for far-far-right-wing religious nutjobs to write their wacky anti-abortion bills. If and when any of their bizarre anti-abortion legislation passes, (some have already passed), there may be millions of positions available as uterus police to monitor the menstruation cycle of every female over the age of fourteenthirteen twelve. Other employment created by the right-wing anti-abortion movement has been to fund college kids like Lila Rose to dress up as pimps and hookers (yawn) to secretly film Planned Parenthood. I am always amused at the self-anointed hoity-toity Republicans and their extreme fascination with everyone’s sexual life.
The irony of this stepped-up crazed anti-abortion anti-choice movement is that Sarah Palin is considered by her bots as their exalted leader. If you take Sarah Palin at her word (gafaww!), she said in her speeches that she considered an abortion (would that be exercising a choice, Sarah??). In fact, the only reason Sarah Palin would have aborted her faked pregnancy of Trig is if John McCain had lost the Republican nomination on 3-4-08. Instead of announcing she was 7 months pregnant on 3-5-08, Sarah Palin would have had the simplest abortion of all time, as no surgery is required to remove the long scarves:
Jason Linkins at Huffington Post did an admirable job setting forth some of the absolutely outrageous proposed anti-choice legislation nationwide, ranging from justifiable homicide of abortion providers to the death penalty for having a miscarriage:
1. Iowa Bill allows the “Justifiable Use of Deadly Force” to protect the unborn:
Bill Premise: Two bills have been combined into one to essentially define an unborn fetus as a person. In protecting that person, the Iowa legislature wants to allow the use of deadly force against abortion doctors or family-planning practitioners. The far-reaching consequence is that if this bill passes, persons that harm or kill abortion providers would be protected under state law from persecution.
2. Nebraska Bill Revives “Justifiable Homicide”:
Bill's Premise: In an effort to expand a bill that started in South Dakota, Nebraska's bill uses justifiable homicide as a means to curb abortions. In the event that a woman wants to protect her unborn fetus, the bill expands to third parties in addition to the pregnant woman, her husband, parents, and children to protect under the law the use of force against abortion doctors or others that endanger the fetus.
The legislation, LB 232, was introduced by state Sen. Mark Christensen, a devout Christian and die-hard abortion foe who is opposed to the prodedure even in the case of rape. Unlike its South Dakota counterpart, which would have allowed only a pregnant woman, her husband, her parents, or her children to commit "justifiable homicide" in defense of her fetus, the Nebraska bill would apply to any third party.
3. Georgia Moves to Criminalize Miscarriages:
Bill's Premise: A Georgia lawmaker wants to make abortion illegal in the state, but doesn't simply stop there. The way the bill is worded effectively criminalizes miscarriages, and the death penalty looms as a punishment. Mother Jones' Jen Phillips calls this measure "the apex...of woman-hating craziness."
4. South Dakota’s Pioneering Foray into “Justifiable Homicide”:
Bill's Premise: South Dakota has the bill that Nebraska emulated regarding this issue. It altered "the state's legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person "while resisting an attempt to harm" that person's unborn child or the unborn child of that person's spouse, partner, parent, or child." That meant that is theoretically would have allowed "a woman's father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion--even if she wanted one."
5. Pennsylvania Wants to Regulate Clinics:
Bill's Premise: A bill showed up in the Pennsylvania state house that would change the classification of abortion clinics. The bill's sponsors want "the state to apply the same regulatory standards to abortion clinics that are applied to other freestanding surgical facilities." This, in turn, would lead to the shuttering of many facilities that perform legal abortions. Restricting the ability of women to have these procedures is the intent of the bill; no one is sincerely concerned about enhancing the safety of these patients.
6. Kansas Considering Two Laws Limiting Abortions:
Bill's Premise: Two bills recently passed the state house. One is an enhanced parental consent bill, that would "require doctors to obtain parents' consent before performing abortions on minors.to limit abortions in the state." The second is a fetal personhood bill that would place "strict limits" on abortions after the 22nd week of gestation, "based on disputed research that fetuses can feel pain at that point of development."
7. Virginia Cracks Down on Clinics:
Bill's Premise: The Virginia Senate approved a measure similar to Pennsylvania's proposed bill, to reclassify abortion clinics. They want them to "meet the same regulatory and architectural requirements as outpatient surgical centers." As with Pennsylvania, the intent here isn't to enhance or improve patient comfort -- it's to shut down clinics. The implications for Virginians is that this law could close "17 of the state's 21 outpatient clinics."
As one of the bills supporters said: "This is about protecting women's health, and you can look at me like that if you want." The reason anyone was looking at him "like that," is that people have a way of looking at people who are disingenuous liars.
Bill's Status: Passed.
8. House Passes Planned Parenthood Defund:
Bill Premise: House Republicans proposed an amendment to H.R. 1, a complete de-funding of Planned Parenthood. The point was to prevent taxpayer money from going to Planned Parenthood that would have been used to fund abortions.
9. GOP Tries to Redefine Rape:
Bill's Premise: H.R. 3, also known as the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," was an attempt to...well, prevent taxpayer money from going to fund abortions. This is something already enforced by the Hyde Amendment, but anti-abortion forces in Congress prefer to pretend this isn't the case, so that the specter of abortions being funded by Federal dollars can be raised time and again (see also: The Stupak Amendment). What made the language of this bill particularly mental was the way it redefined rape, making abortions only allowable in the case of "forcible rape."
That meant that if you were coerced, drugged or otherwise incapacitated by a rapist, too bad for you. Bizarrely, it also excluded statutory rape, and incest, unless the incest survivor was a minor.
10. South Dakota Tries Again:
Bill's Premise: After their "justifiable homicide" bill got shelved, South Dakota lawmakers set their sights a little lower and are debating House Bill 1217, which would force women into a veritable obstacle course in order to obtain a legal abortion.
Per Jillian Rayfield on TPM, the measure would require women to first meet with a doctor, then consult with a "pregnancy help center" (where she'd be pressured to not have an abortion), then wait 72 hours after this second consultation before having the procedure. The bill is designed to make it as onerous as possible on women seeking these procedures; it falls especially heavy on the poor, who would have to take additional time off work, and make extra long-distance trips in a state where 98% of the counties have no abortion provider at all.
Bill's Status: In debate.
And more recently, 'Ohio Senate committee schedules unborn child as witness.'
If James O’Keefe or Lila Rose are operating the “ultrasound” equipment, you can almost bet the fetus will “testify” under oath.
With all these so-called “Christians” leading the battle against abortion and invoking the word of God or Jesus as justification for their battle, where exactly in the Bible does it condemn abortion? {{crickets}}
In actuality, if you want to take the nearly 2000 year old Bible literally as God speaking, it seems God actually approves of inducing a miscarriage/abortion. Take a look at Numbers 5:11-
31. God says that if a husband suspects his wife has been unfaithful, she is to be given "bitter waters" to induce a miscarriage:
5:27 And when he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has acted unfaithfully against her husband, the (bitter) water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her body shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become an execration (curse or swearword) among her people.
As a follow up on this “bitter waters” and “her thigh shall fall away” from the Bible, I found an interesting article: "History of Contraception (May 2009)", written by Malcolm Potts, MD Bixby Professor of Population & Family Planning, Division of Health & Medical Sciences, UCLA at Berkeley, USA and by Martha Campbell, PhD President, Venture Strategies, Berkeley, California, USA
Is this the “bitter waters” mentioned in Numbers 5:11-31?
Herbal remedies for bringing on delayed menstruation abound in history and in contemporary folk culture. One ancient method of unusual interest was the use of an herb called silphion exported from the ancient Greek city of Cyrene in North Africa. The plant was said to be worth its weight in silver. It is not clear whether it was an oral contraceptive or oral abortifacient, although extracts of related living species prevent implantation in mice. Efforts were made to grow the plant in other parts of the Mediterranean, but they failed, and the herb was harvested to extinction in classical times. Silphion was portrayed on the Cyrene coins.
Is this the reference in Numbers 5:27 to “her thigh shall fall away”?
Embryotomy to save the mother's life during labor is mentioned in ancient Jewish writings. Rhazes describes such a method:
If … the semen has become lodged, there is no help for it but that she insert into her womb a probe or stick cut into the shape of a probe, especially good being the root of the mallow. One end of the probe should be made fast to the thigh with a thread that it may go no further. Leave it there all night, often all day as well…. Some people screw paper up tight into the shape of a probe and after binding it securely with silk smear over it ginger dissolved in water.
The GOP/TeaParty's most useful rabble-rousing tool is anti-choice rhetoric to win the votes of the churchy-type folks who simply and blindly parrot theocratic babble verses from nearly 2000 years ago when the world was flat. While many say they feel comfort in reading the “Good Book” which contains extreme violence, I personally prefer “Game Change”. We live in the 21st century and I would feel a lot more comfort if all of our government representatives would use real life reason to solve our real life problems, not theocratic hyperbole.
